"That's one big difference between John Does two and three and the first guy we found," the chief said. "It's a coupla kidney-cleaning miles from the nearest public road to where John Doe one was dumped." He put a 1 on the McGeochs' farm.
"But it is in the same general area where you were out chasing those runaway illegals," MacAuley pointed out.
"I think we can safely say that's a dead end." The chief went back to his table and picked up his coffee mug. "The men running around in those woods were in Mexico last year when the last two John Does were killed."
"The Christies and their kin weren't."
The chief let his hand fall open. "Put them on the board."
"Chief." Kevin tried to control his face from pinking up as everyone turned toward him. "How do we know they were in Mexico a year ago? I mean, if they were illegals, there wouldn't be any trail, because that's kind of the point. I know they weren't employed by your sister and her husband, but maybe they were in the area working for somebody else." He paused. The chief made a "go on" gesture. "Maybe we should canvass area farms and see who might've had migrant workers last year and over winter."
"Maybe." The chief leaned against the table. "My problem with that is I don't see the connection between dairy hands and professional executions."
Kevin figured everyone was thinking the same thing. So he said it. "What if it's not professional?"
"What do you mean, Kevin? A sport killing? Somebody doing it for kicks? No." The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. "I refuse to believe we're dealing with some sort of serial killer here."
"You need to at least put it on the table, Russ." MacAuley wrote the words "Thrill killer" at one corner of the board.
"Serial killers go after vulnerable populations. Kids. Prostitutes."
"What about Jeffrey Dahmer?"
"Bob Berdella?"
"Randy Steven Kraft?"
MacAuley gave them a look that said shut up. He turned to the chief. "The vics already fall into a class," he said. "Young men in their early twenties." He ticked a point off one finger.
"Watch out, Kevin," Urquhart said.
"Non-Caucasians." The deputy ticked off another finger.
"We can't say that about three." The chief crossed his arms over his chest.
"Killed during tourist season." MacAuley ticked off his third finger.
"April? Nobody comes to Millers Kill in April."
"Bodies left in remote locations in Cossayuharie." MacAuley ticked off a fourth finger. "And finally, all three of them killed in the same fashion with the same-caliber weapon." He held his hand up and waggled his fingers. "We can't rule out a serial killer. Not with three bodies agreeing on five points."
"Why-" Hadley started to say, then shut her mouth.
"Go, on, Knox," the chief said.
She swallowed. "Why was the first guy-I mean, John Doe one-why was he dumped? The others were buried. Not deep, but they were buried. He was just laying out there in the open."
The chief slid up onto the table and braced his boots on a chair. "What do you think?"
Her face fell into the cool expressionless mask that had completely unnerved Kevin when she'd directed it toward him. She's panicked, he realized. She's afraid of coming across like an idiot. The chief looked at her patiently. MacAuley looked at her like a guy who was running late for his proctologist's appointment. Kevin twitched in his seat. Urquhart was smirking.
The search. He tried to beam the thought into her head. It must have worked, because her eyes slid toward him. He put his hand up to his mouth. "Huggins," he coughed.
"The search for the men who ran away after the accident interrupted the killer," she said instantly. "There was no chance to bury the victim because the area was crawling with searchers."
"Which means," the chief said, "somebody who was there that night may have seen something. We need a list of everyone on the SAR team who participated, and the various Christie relatives who turned out. That'll be your job, Eric."
McCrea slid low in his chair and groaned. Several "baas" erupted from the back of the room.
"The other possibility," the chief said, "is that the body found in the back of the McGeochs' property is unrelated to the two found past the Muster Field." The dep snorted loudly but didn't say anything. "We've sent the pictures and the ME's preliminary report down to the Bronx, where they're trying to find the two men Knox and Flynn stopped last week." He stared at the whiteboard, which had a lot of theories and very few solutions. "Kevin, you go ahead and follow up on the local migrant worker population."
Kevin clenched his fist in triumph. In like Flynn.
"Knox, you're with McCrea. Noble, you take the SAR volunteers. Lyle, since you like the serial killer angle so much, you get to work on the VCAP database and see if you can find anything that sounds familiar."
"Any evidence that John Doe one was sexually assaulted?"
The chief's eyebrows went up. "I didn't see anything in Scheeler's report. Although, since he did his prelim before we found the other two, maybe he wasn't looking in that-uh-direction." Urquhart snickered. The chief ignored him. "You thinking someone preying on young gay men?"
The dep shrugged. "Two guys alone in the woods with no signs of coercion? It's not like we haven't seen it before."
The chief pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Yeah."
Hadley leaned toward Kevin. "What are they talking about?" she hissed.
"Three summers ago," he whispered, "two gay guys were beaten up and another one killed."
She flinched. "That's awful." Then her expression changed. Became thoughtful. "Why are we assuming it's a guy?"
"Knox? Kevin?" The chief was frowning.
"If you two brought candy, you better have enough for the other kids," the dep said.
"Why are we assuming it's a guy?" Hadley said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She looked up at the chief. "Maybe the killer is a woman." Hadley looked around the room, measuring the others' reactions. "She could have lured them into the woods." She turned to MacAuley. "You don't need to restrain someone if he's busy taking his pants off."
"If it was poison, or there was money involved-those are the sort of situations where women've appeared as serial killers." The dep sounded like he was trying to be diplomatic. "Naked guys tapped in the woods-there just aren't many recorded instances of women doing that."
"Maybe that's because they're better at covering it up than men," Hadley said.